A Texan conservative Anglican -- yes, a square peg -- ponders both churchly and worldly things and enjoys his new church.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Catholics Have Reason to Be Concerned About the Synod on the Family

Although not papist myself, I’ve long
thought I have more in common with orthodox Romans than with Liberal “mainline”
Protestants – much more.And I
note and share conservative Catholic concern about Pope Francis’ Synod on the
Family.

In the next three weeks, I fully expect the
leadership of my own One Holy and Apostolic Catholic Church to fall into
apostasy, at the conclusion of the Synod on the Family that begins today in
Rome. This is the outcome Pope Francis has shaped over the entirety of his
pontificate, and particularly with his recent appointments. An event like this
—heresy promulgated by the Pope and his bishops — is believed by most Catholics
to be impossible. But they should be prepared for it anyway. This is not an
ordinary religious conference, but one to be dreaded.

My prediction is that, after much fixing and
machinations by its leaders, the Synod on the Family will declare that the Holy
Spirit led them to a new understanding of the truth. The Synod’s leaders will
adopt the position that those living in second marriages, irrespective of the
status of their first marriage, should be admitted to Holy Communion. This is
commonly called the “Kasper proposal” after its author, the German Cardinal
Walter Kasper. The Synod will likely leave the details of a “penitential period
of reflection” for these souls up to local bishops and parish priests The
leading bishops will assure critics that in fact no doctrine has been changed,
only a discipline — even if these will make no sense when considered together.

Certain theologians will cheer this as a radical
break. They will declare this change of discipline to be what the critics
alleged all along: a rupture within the tradition of the church, a change in
doctrine. They will say that this glorious event proves the church is capable
not only of developing its doctrines, but also of evolving them into something
new, even something that contradicts the old. Those who had made themselves
enemies of papal authority for decades will become a new kind of
ultramontanist. The papacy that had been the final guardian of the faith will
now become an ongoing oracle, dispensing new gospel teachings that our Lord and
the Apostles missed.

The church’s teachings on contraception,
homosexuality, and pre-marital sex must all be subjected to this evolution, in
light of what we know about how people actually live. How they ought to live is
a moot question.

That is alarmist
perhaps.But after watching
Francis, I think it not unrealistic.

Two matters about Synod
that should concern (And trust me that this is for starters.):

1. Francis’ insistence
that bishops should be able to keep their interventions in Synod secret, which
of course greatly undermines accountability.There has already been a notorious example of this from
Synod:

The actual interventions that take place on the
synod floor are not made available to the public, by the will of the Holy
Father. However, Archbishop Gadecki heroically took notes
on the interventions made by the synod fathers, and actually made them public
on his blog here.
They were quickly taken
down at the behest of Cardinal Baldisseri. Fortunately, copies of these
interventions were saved and thanks to the work of Archbishop Gadecki, we know
what kind of evil is taking place behind closed doors. Case in point, one
intervention made by Cardinal Lacunza Maestrojuan suggested that the church
should return to the Law of Moses on the matter of divorce and remarriage,
which naturally implies the words of Christ on this matter should be abandoned.

Rorate Caeli, which is
following Synod closely, has provided more detail on this silencing.

The Venerable Fr. John
Hunwicke notes and notes well that this secrecy of Synod is the will of Francis and is completely out of line with
scripture and tradition and with reason for that matter:

A bishop is not a distinguished individual; he is episcopus in et cum Ecclesia sua. Episcopacy
is not a personal fashion accessory. I can think of few things more
disgracefully clericalist, more ecclesiologically corrupt, than bishops meeting
privately "in a protected space" in which they believe themselves
free to stitch together something which might not be according to the traditam per Apostolos revelationem seu
fidei depositum; and to do this without any element of the
discipline and responsibility which comes from it being publicly known what
each has said. Have their diocesan priests, deacons, and layfolk no rights whatsoever? Is
Episcopacy simply a matter of lording it over the flock of Christ (I Peter 5:3)
without oneself being answerable to the plebs
sancta Dei? I am reminded of what an English poet called Kipling once
said to an English Press Baron called Beaverbrook: "Power without
responsibility - the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages".

Some has said that there
is no way the conservative bishops attending Synod will allow serious error to
come out of it.(Which begs the
question of how Francis got elected Pope, but anyway.) The problem is Francis
is not above rigging matters, not at all.Heck, he reminds me of Harry Reid.

At the end of 2014, there was a major controversy
when the Holy Father allowed from various controversial paragraphs to remain in
the 2014 Relatio Synodi document, to be
used as a basis for the 2015 synod (in a document called Instrumentum Laboris), even
though they didn’t receive the required two-thirds vote. To make matters worse,
when those controversial paragraphs, which include the Kasper Proposal, were
questioned by some synod fathers this week, they were
told by Cardinal
Baldisseri: “Well, if you want to get them out, it will require a
two-thirds vote”! To be clear, this means that instead of needing a two-thirds
vote to include paragraphs in
the document, it will instead require a two-thirds vote to remove problematic language.

This demonstrates the Holy Father is allowing for
the ramming of the Kasper Proposal down the throats of the Synod fathers,
whether they like it or not.

1 comment:

There may be concern by non-Catholics, because what the Catholic Church does resonates throughout the Christian world.

But Catholics believe that the Church is specially guided and protected by the Holy Spirit, and that the magisterium is given, not to create anxiety every time a synod meets, or every time a pope opens his mouth, but as an assurance that the gates of hell cannot and will not overcome the Church.